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SJT topic guide

Importance Questions

Decide how much a factor should influence the response.

Guide page2 of 12

Importance Questions

Decide how much a factor should influence the response.

SHAPEmethod for this question type
S
Safety first

Safety, rights and honesty are almost always very important. Convenience, embarrassment and fear of discipline almost never are.

H
Honesty always

Honesty-related factors carry high weight — concealment, misleading communication and record integrity always matter.

A
Act within your role

Act within your role — a factor becomes important if it affects whether you need supervision or senior input.

P
Proportionate

Proportionate importance — ask whether this factor would meaningfully change what a professional should do.

E
Escalate right

Escalation relevance — if ignoring this factor could put someone at risk, it is almost certainly important.

◎How to spot it

What will the question look like?

The stem asks how important a consideration is rather than whether an action is good.

✦Rules to remember

Keep these in view

  • Safety, rights, honesty and competence are usually highly relevant.
  • Embarrassment, convenience and fear of discipline are usually low relevance.
  • True details are not automatically important.
⚑Common traps

What tends to pull students off course

  • Rating vivid emotion too highly
  • Treating every true detail as decisive
  • Letting friendship influence duty
See it in action

Importance Questions in context

A friend's fear of disciplinary action should carry little or no weight when deciding whether to raise a serious safety concern.

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